A Feast for Crows ÔÇö Jaime II
By night Jaime crosses swords with Ser Ilyn Payne, the only partner who cannot mock him aloud; by day he watches Cersei rule and bites his tongue bloody.
The chapter retold
By night, Jaime spars with Ser Ilyn Payne, the mute former headsman turned Kingsguard brother ÔÇö practice with a partner incapable of mocking his ruined swordarm aloud, which is precisely why Jaime seeks him out. By day he watches Cersei govern from the sidelines, forced into silence by his own refusal of the Handship, biting down on objections to decisions he thinks are reckless because he has ceded any formal claim to a say in them. The distance between the twins widens with each council meeting he sits through and says nothing in.
The training sessions function as the chapter's real subject: Jaime relearning how to be dangerous with his off hand, which is also, unmistakably, Jaime relearning who he is without the identity ÔÇö Kingslayer, finest swordsman in Westeros ÔÇö that defined him for two decades. His forced political silence, meanwhile, is presented as its own kind of self-punishment, a man watching a slow-motion mistake unfold and choosing principle over intervention, even as the cost of that choice compounds visibly with every chapter Cersei is left unchecked.
This movement: The Kingsmoot
- On Old Wyk the drowned god's captains vote: Asha offers peace, Victarion strength ÔÇö and Euron Crow's Eye offers dragons.
- The Crow's Eye takes the driftwood crown with a horn said to bind dragons, and sends Victarion to court Daenerys.
- Cersei's small war on Margaery begins: spies, whores, and a walking corpse under Qyburn's care.
- The Sand Snakes are locked away as Dorne seethes over Oberyn; Arianne plots a queen of her own.